Space Between the Stars (13 page)

The officers said that Harvette fit the description of a man who had robbed a store, so they had reason to search the car.
What could they have seen of Harvette when we passed, other than his skin color?
We stood outside the shimmery blue Corvair. Harvette wasn't shaved. He wore a sweatshirt with ragged sleeves above his elbows, khaki trousers, and tennis shoes. His hair was cut very close to his head. I looked down at my black bell-bottom jeans and white-and-navy-striped shirt, and I did not think my outfit was menacing. My hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and the only makeup I wore was lip gloss. One of the officers raised himself from the car with a long grin and held up a pistol. “This was under the driver's seat,” he said.

I stood, mouth agape, cutting Harvette a blistering glare. Why did he have a gun? I wasn't street-smart, but after more than a year in Sly's wild world of drugs and dealers, I was accustomed to being out of my element and in alarming situations.

The police radio cracked and hummed as one of the officers called for backup. It was early enough that few people were on
the streets. I thought nervously of jail
—God, what would Mom and Dad do if they found out?

When the backup squad car arrived, a female officer pushed me into one vehicle, and Harvette was slammed into the other. Two women drove me over the L.A. highways. My arms were painfully cinched immobile behind my back, so I could not even slide down in the seat to avoid the eyes of drivers on the freeway who casually glanced over at the young criminal. I remembered the Seconal and Tuinal pills inside my boot and wondered what would happen to me if the police found those drugs. Inside the jail, they sat me in a metal chair with a cold Naugahyde seat and took off my cuffs. A desk sergeant pulled out paperwork. He wore a button-down shirt with the collar open, an easy attitude, and greasy hair. My eyes darted around the office, looking for someplace to dunk the drugs. The desk sarge was called away; and I reached into my boot, took out all the pills, swallowed two, and quickly dropped the rest in the gray metal wastebasket in front of me, breathing in relief. When he came back, I was pushing the pills down my throat by gathering saliva in a pool in my mouth and swallowing hard. I gave him my real name— Deborah King—and was booked.

The officer asked me what I was doing with Harvette.
Where had he gotten the gun? Had he robbed the liquor store? Was I his girl?
I answered that we had been on an errand; I had not known he had a gun; we had not gone to a liquor store; and Harvette had a wife who was at home waiting for us. I wasn't scared, now that the pills were gone—we had not committed a crime. While I sat in the police station, I reflected on my repugnant universe of drug-taking and all-nighters, Sly's friends who
weren't friends, the women who slept with anyone, and the men who demanded it.

“You get one phone call,” the officer barked at me. I called Kitsaun. “What happened?” she screamed. I explained Harvette's driving and the gun. “Oh, my God,” Kitsaun said. “Okay. Don't worry. I'll get you out.”

I was taken to an industrial bathroom and told to undress so I could be searched. It was a greenish room with mirrors, and I was thinking that I was in a movie, a bad, scary movie. The female officer who searched me walked me to a cell with bars, and I entered a dark, cement room. By then, the barbiturates were taking effect. A small-faced Caucasian woman sat on the bunk on the other wall. I sat down on the thin, hard bed across from her, feeling confident I would not be there long. I knew that Kitsaun could get money from Sly's house and bail me out. In a small voice, the girl asked what had happened.

“My friend and I were pulled over for an illegal turn.” My tongue felt thick, and the room was looking fuzzy. The familiar warmth of drunkenness was overtaking me.

“I was arrested at a house where my friends and I were at a party,” the mousy woman said. “I was stoned, and I think something really bad happened.”

She kept talking, but I fell into a deep, drugged sleep. I awoke to a female voice calling my name. I stood, stiff and cold, and followed the jailer into an outer room. Kitsaun ran over to me, her eyes overflowing, and hugged me tight. Stevie stood skinny as a stick and smiled at me with her dimple folding into her light brown, freckled face. Sunlight poured in through the window. I could not believe it was morning again.
“Sly wouldn't bail you out, because you were with Harvette,” Stevie said. “It took us all night to borrow the money from our friends.”

I could not believe Sly wanted to punish me for being with short, stocky, married Harvette—especially since we were running an errand for Sly. “What an asshole!” I yelled. Rage flew through every pore in my body. I refused to go to Bel Air.

Kitsaun and Stevie took me to Leora's. She was one of our friends who was not involved with Sly. When he called from the road, I wouldn't speak with him; I was so angry that he hadn't helped me. He came back to L.A. and had the limo driver immediately take him to Leora's. He explained that he had only been trying to teach me a lesson when he didn't bail me out.

“And what lesson was that?” I asked, my teeth clenched. “That I should not do things for you, or that I should have known Harvette had a gun?” I stared him down, hands on my skinny hips, daring him to prove he was right.

“Listen, baby,” he said. “I'm sorry. Please move back home.” He told me that I would need his lawyer, Peter Knecht, and that he could get my charges dropped. I did not understand how I could have charges, but I agreed to see him. Sly kissed and cooed, and I got into the limo with him and went back to Bel Air. When he took me to his lawyer, Mr. Knecht informed me that the woman who had shared my cell was Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, one of Charles Manson's girlfriends who was on trial for the murder of an actress named Sharon Tate. It was frightening to think I had slept across from an accused murderer.

The house at Bel Air was filled with a circus of people com-
ing and going: Jimmy Ford, with his twangy Southern accent and funny jokes; two Italian drug dealers from New York; and a doped-up Wendy—types my dad would have called hangers-on. Harvette and his wife, Peachy, moved out so that their baby could have a normal life. Kitsaun went home to San Francisco. And Sly and I spent time in the master suite talking before people would arrive in the evenings to play music and share drugs.

One night, Sly was getting ready to go out. “I won't be gone long, baby,” he said, and leaned over me with a long, wet kiss. “I want you to stay in the bedroom. Some of the guys might be going in and out of the house.”

“I'll be fine,” I said, even though my heart was not. I had been examining my weaknesses and looking for a way out of the self-destruction I was living. Just the night before I'd remembered the habit I'd had since I was a small child of saying my prayers every night before I would fall asleep. Now it must have been months since I had prayed.

He pulled on his black nylon striped “pimp” socks and slid two joints inside, along his shinbone. He pushed his feet into fur boots and twirled in the mirror, the fringe on his suede knickers dancing. Sly walked to the safe. He opened the door and lifted out the jar of tranquilizers. “Here, have a Placidyl.” He dropped two into my upturned palm.

I listened to his steps down the stairs. My heart sank with disappointment in myself.
Oh, well, I'll call Lynn. Maybe we'll write for an hour or so.
I walked downstairs to the kitchen. The house was quiet. There was some sort of lunch meat in the refrigerator, but it had a pink tint. I looked in the pantry and saw crack-
ers and peanut butter. A bowl on the counter had apples in it. I set the crackers on a plate. The front door creaked open, and footsteps climbed the stairs.

“Debbie!” I heard Sly yell gruffly.

“I'm in the kitchen,” I answered, closing the cabinet.

Like a savage storm, he was next to me, leering into my face. “Why aren't you in the bedroom?”

“I wanted something to eat,” I answered, moving back against the wall.

“I told you to stay in the bedroom!” he screamed. His eyes were cold and dark, his body tense, fists balled at his sides. “You do what I tell you, woman,” he shouted, and grabbed my right arm, lifting me off the ground. I tried to wrestle my arm from his grasp. The plate of crackers spun across the counter and crashed on the floor. Sly dragged me up the stairs and shoved me into the bedroom. I tried to catch myself, but fell back on the bed, the heat of his fingers twisted into my arm. He straddled me and raised his arm. I reached out to stop his hand, but he pulled it free and slapped me.

“You're crazy!” I wailed, covering my face with both hands, trying to roll away from him.

“Maybe,” he snarled, hopping off the bed. I kept my face hidden as he walked out, slamming the door. The sound of his footsteps grew softer as he descended the staircase.

I rocked back and forth on the bed, moaning. My cheeks burned from his dry hands.
I'm going home tomorrow. Then he'll miss me. Maybe he'll even beg me to come back, but I won't.
I went to the bathroom and filled a glass with water. The Placydils went down my throat like the medicine they were.
A soft rap came at the door. “Who is it?” I asked, knowing such a gentle knock could not be Sly.

“It's Lynn. Are you okay?”

I slid off the bed and dizzily stumbled to the door, peering through a slit at Lynn's bird-like face.

“I heard shouting. Is Sly here?”

The concern in her voice brought tears to my eyes. “No,” I whispered. Lynn came inside and looked at my face. “Oh, God,” she gasped. “You're hurt.” She gently slid her hand over my cheek. The skin throbbed. She guided me to the bed.

“This is the second time he's hit me,” I said.

“That's not right, Debbie.”

“I never dreamed I would be with a man who would hit me. I've never seen anything like this. I'm no match for him. We've been together a year and a half.” I looked at the ceiling. “I don't know what set him off tonight. Maybe he is going insane.”

“He cares for you. But the whole band is going crazy now,” Lynn said. “What about going back to college?”

I laid my head in her lap. “I'm going to leave,” I said. “I'll go home for a while.”

“Maybe that would be good.” Lynn rubbed her fingers in circles on my temples.

When I opened my eyes, hazy sunlight filtered through the windows. I was curled up at the edge of the bed. Sharp pains pulsed in my face. Sly was snoring loudly, lying fully clothed on the other side of the bed. I must have fallen asleep while Lynn and I were talking. I had not heard her leave or Sly come in. Quietly, I slid off the bed and crawled into the dressing room. Standing woozily, I pulled a soft satchel down from the closet
shelf. From the drawers I pulled T-shirts, bell bottoms, and undies, my childhood Bible with my name embossed in gold, and Mom's letter. I stuffed everything in the bag and snapped it closed. In the bathroom, I leaned into the mirror. A purplish-red bruise curved like a quarter-moon beneath my left eye. I ran my tongue over the inside of my lip, swollen and cut, where a tooth had jabbed when Sly's hand slammed into my face. It was raw and metallic tasting. I squeezed my eyes shut. What had happened to my dreams? I believed nothing could stop this man from seriously hurting me. Looking at him lying on the bed, skinny, drugged, and unconscious, I could not find anything attractive about him, or one soul-stirring reason to stay. He was mentally gone; his soul dying.

I gently brushed my teeth and combed my hair back into a ponytail. I pulled on pants and a turtleneck. Sly's pouch was on the table. I slid my hand in, watching his still body on the bed, ready to run if he moved, and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. That should be enough to get me home.

My head throbbed as I unlocked the bedroom door and tiptoed down the stairs. I called a taxi from the study. I wanted to go down to the pool house to say good-bye to Lynn, but I was afraid Sly would wake up and find me. What would he do to me if he saw me leaving?
Be Here Now
was on the desk, and I picked it up and cradled it in my arms.

A sense of relief washed over me as I walked out to the flagstone stairs along the driveway to wait for the cab. Everything that had happened since I had been at this house seemed to be an end for Sly and me. I was glad to flee the darkness of Bel Air. A fan-shaped palm hid me from its view. The sound of a door
slamming sent me scrambling up the hillside to the lawn along the street. Thank God, the cream-colored taxi was turning into the drive.

In the cab, my thoughts turned to my family. My heart hung defeated in my chest. What if Mom and Dad were angry with me? I had run off with Sly, dropped out of college, and had been terrible communicating with them. Now, I was crawling back.

I could not go home with this bruise on my face. At LAX, I ran into the sundry shop, bought makeup, and smeared the watery foundation onto my face. I purchased a standby ticket to San Francisco on PSA.

Staring out the plane window, I watched L.A. grow small as we ascended through the clouds. Tears smeared my makeup, but I could not stop crying. I let my sadness tenderly flow out and I prayed for strength not to return to Sly.

I reapplied the foundation at SFO. My stomach was caved in with hunger; my navy sailor pants hung on me like a kite in the wind. I bought an orange juice and drank it on the taxi ride to Harold Avenue as I rehearsed my lines for Mom and Dad.

I climbed the stairs to my home. “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.” I mocked cheerfulness when I opened the front door.

“Debbie!” Mom exclaimed. She set her knitting on the coffee table, smiling as she walked quickly toward me. Dad set his guitar down and stood up. Surprise lit both of their faces. Mom hugged me. “You're skin and bones!” she exclaimed. “What's that on your cheek?”

I tried to pull back from her arms. “Where?” I asked. “I don't know. Oh! Maybe I got a bruise when Gunn reached up to lick my face last night. His snout is hard as a rock.”
Mom did not look convinced, but she played along. “I didn't trust that dog when I saw him.”

My eyes took in our small living room, the oval mirror hanging crooked on the wall, the marble end tables, and the yellow-flowered couch. I remembered the afternoon when Kit-saun and I had tried to rearrange the living room and dropped the long coffee table. The marble cracked, and we wrote Mom and Dad a note saying we had run away because we knew it couldn't be repaired. Then we hid in the garden. They were not even angry, because they were so glad we had not run off. Now we have two tables instead of one.